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- #81
philthegeek
Well-Known Member
on dive weights.
Good point. Being a tinkering type am going to try and move on from the last system for next grow with soil.
I had the polystyrene in the trays to reduce the water volume and get faster cycling of the wet / dry and the wieght to stop that floating.
What i plan for the next grow is to use shallow nally bins, with lids, in black, so that roots that come out the bottom of the pot are in the dark where roots like to be. Use 2 x 250mm diameter pots / bin. Much like the DWC experiment grow i am doing now but only 1 plant / pot. Fewer, but larger plants than i have done so far with more room to LST each plant.
Will use a 50/50 mix of soil / perlite. Lots of perlite to get a nicely aerated root zone and no probs with over-watering.
In each bin, an autopot smartvalve, gravity fed. That will mean the pots pretty much permanently sit in < = 25mm or so of water. But thats ok as long as the soil mix is half perlite.
Will run a couple of aquarium airstones in each bin to oxygenate the standing water in the bins 24/7. Becomes something like a shallow DWC setup, but water not nutrient solution??
Should be neater than the polystyrene i used before, no lead weights, and will have no or much less algae growth than the open trays did. But, still gives me a system i can walk away from for a few days at a time with reliable watering. Going back to a soil mix, rather than the straight the perlite i am using in my DWC grow will also mean i can forget the constant pH / ppm monitoring.
The soil mix i make up also has a bit of fertiliser (Growers Blue and Osmocote) from day 1. Seems to give the seedlings what they want without burning them in the early stages. Once established i feed with 1/2 strength Thrive / Neem every week or 10 days and get happy plants.
Yup, tinkering is fun.
Good point. Being a tinkering type am going to try and move on from the last system for next grow with soil.
I had the polystyrene in the trays to reduce the water volume and get faster cycling of the wet / dry and the wieght to stop that floating.
What i plan for the next grow is to use shallow nally bins, with lids, in black, so that roots that come out the bottom of the pot are in the dark where roots like to be. Use 2 x 250mm diameter pots / bin. Much like the DWC experiment grow i am doing now but only 1 plant / pot. Fewer, but larger plants than i have done so far with more room to LST each plant.
Will use a 50/50 mix of soil / perlite. Lots of perlite to get a nicely aerated root zone and no probs with over-watering.
In each bin, an autopot smartvalve, gravity fed. That will mean the pots pretty much permanently sit in < = 25mm or so of water. But thats ok as long as the soil mix is half perlite.
Will run a couple of aquarium airstones in each bin to oxygenate the standing water in the bins 24/7. Becomes something like a shallow DWC setup, but water not nutrient solution??
Should be neater than the polystyrene i used before, no lead weights, and will have no or much less algae growth than the open trays did. But, still gives me a system i can walk away from for a few days at a time with reliable watering. Going back to a soil mix, rather than the straight the perlite i am using in my DWC grow will also mean i can forget the constant pH / ppm monitoring.
The soil mix i make up also has a bit of fertiliser (Growers Blue and Osmocote) from day 1. Seems to give the seedlings what they want without burning them in the early stages. Once established i feed with 1/2 strength Thrive / Neem every week or 10 days and get happy plants. Yup, tinkering is fun.
